Balance of Opinion: Deciphering the president

The punditry prides itself on reading a president's political
tendencies, but Barack Obama's tax-cut compromise with Republican
leaders has many columnists taking a new stab at the basic
question: Just who is that man in the White House?

Mark Halperin considers the GOP deal to be "the kind of
bipartisan compromise that was supposed to be the hallmark" of
Obama's presidency, and he urges Obama to hold fast to his centrist
predilections.

"Here's a simple rule to guide the president," the Time analyst
writes. "If a proposal is denounced by both Nancy Pelosi and Sarah
Palin, it will probably find support in the center of the
electorate."

David Broder, as well, is heartened that Obama has "separated
himself from the left of his own party and staked a strong claim to
the territory where national elections are fought and won: the
independent center."

To the Washington Post columnist, fallout from the GOP deal has
given Obama an opportunity "to define himself, more clearly than
ever before, as a raging moderate - a man who recognizes that
compromise is the key to serving a broad and diverse set of
constituencies, rather than fit some ideological standard of
intellectual purity."

Dick Morris also interprets Obama's maneuvers as an indication
that he is "moving to the center," but the Creators Syndicate
columnist hardly sees it as a sign of strength.

"In the course of coming in from the cold of his extreme
far-left positions," Morris writes, "the president looks like a
wimp, abandoning his long-held views in the face of electoral
defeats, adverse court rulings, recalcitrant Democrats and strong,
united Republican opposition.

"And wimps don't win."

E.J. Dionne takes note that the White House has been working to
characterize the president "as a centrist problem-solver," but the
Washington Post columnist isn't necessarily buying it.

"What's most striking" about the GOP deal, Dionne concludes, "is
the extent to which it only reinforces Obama's image as an inside
technocratic dealmaker. It turns out he will negotiate with anyone
to get what seems sensible to him."

That's a problem to Dionne. "This approach," he writes,
"shortchanges the need to carry on a sustained argument on behalf
of his overall objectives and rejects the idea that some 'fights,'
a word Obama uses with disdain (except, perhaps, when he's
criticizing liberals), are instructive and can help accomplish
change over the long term."

In his assessment, David Brooks perceives a presidential shift
far less in ideology than in strategy.

The New York Times columnist sketches out his own thesis that,
for the first two years of his presidency, Obama has been governing
as a "cluster liberal," who views politics "as a battle between
implacable opponents." Now, Brooks decides, Obama is moving back to
his roots as a "network liberal," who tends "to believe ... that
politics is a complex jockeying of ideas and interests."

"This isn't a move to the center or triangulation," the
columnist writes. "It's not the Clinton model or the Truman model
or any of the other stale categories people are trying to impose on
him. It's standing at one spot in the political universe and trying
to build alliances temporarily with people at other spots in the
political universe.

"You don't have to abandon your principles to cut a deal. You
just have to acknowledge that there are other people in the world
and even a president doesn't get to stamp his foot and have his
way."

Nancy Kruh is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tenn. Her e-mail
address is nancykruh@att.net.

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About Nancy Kruh

EMPLOYMENT: I spent 25 years at The Dallas Morning News, starting out part-time on the city desk, mostly writing obits and answering the phone, then moving on full time to the news copy desk and finally to features, where I spent 20 years as an editor and staff writer. I've been a free-lance writer and editor since 2000.
MOST UNFORGETTABLE MOMENT ON THE JOB: Politically speaking, I'll cite two for the sake of balance: First, riding in a bus for two days with a bunch of Clinton fans from Hope, Arkansas, to Washington, D.C., where we witnessed the 1993 presidential inauguration in the standing-room section -- and standing for five hours to do so. Second, covering the 1996 GOP National Convention in San Diego, where the Republican stars of the day were rivaled only by a party-sponsored fireworks show that was no doubt the most spectacular I've ever witnessed.

Hometown: Born in Fayetteville, Ark., raised in Manhattan, Kansas, moved to Dallas in 1972 to attend SMU, and moved on to Nashville in 2009.

Education: A bachelor of arts (journalism major) at SMU (1976) and a master of arts in humanities at the University of Texas-Dallas (2008).